


A Not So Unlucky Shot

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/M, Het, Rare Pair, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:39:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Joe's partner gets shot, Caitlin comes to his aid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Not So Unlucky Shot

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a lonely prompt at comment fic, but when I went to post it, the prompt had already been filled! It was any, any/any, a medical emergency leads to romance.

When the echo of gunshots fades and the smoke clears, Joe rushes over to his partner, stares in horror at the twin stains spreading across his chest and arm. "We need a medic!" he calls as he drops to his knees beside Fred, looking into the other man's eyes. "You're gonna be ok, partner."

His friend's eyes are already going glassy, shock setting in, but it's Joe's turn to be surprised when a woman kneels down on the other side of Fred, pulling one eye wide open and peering inside. Whatever she sees there makes her frown and Joe blinks. "Miss..." he begins but he stops when she turns to him, gives him a glare that could freeze water. 

"I'm a doctor," she says, looking back down at Fred quickly, not giving Joe a second glance and he feels his eyebrows go up. She looks to be about the same age as Barry and Iris, which is to say nowhere near  old enough to be a doctor and the next words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. 

"You are?"

He gets another of those glares. "Would you like me to stop and get my diploma, or should I continue saving your friend's life?" She's starting to look mighty pissed off and Joe spreads his hands in the universal gesture of continue please. The woman makes a noise at the back of her throat, checks Fred's other eye before glancing at his arm. "Take off your tie," she commands, her tone brooking no argument and Joe is handing it over before it's even registered that he's untied it. She snatches  it from him, hands wrapping it around Fred's arm and pulling it tight, stanching the flow of blood. 

"Where's that ambulance?" Joe calls, checking behind him, is met by a uniformed  officer giving him a helpless shrug.  

"Can you turn him over a bit?" the doctor asks.  "I need to see his back."

"Exit wound." She nods at Joe's words, eyes meeting in mutual understanding and as carefully as he can, Joe rolls Fred onto his side, trying to ignore the terrible groan his partner lets out. The woman comes around beside him to check, and Joe glances at her. "No exit wound... is that good?"

She looks at him, gives him a small, fleeting smile. "Could be worse," she says and he has a sudden image of Fred bleeding out right in front of him. She bites her lip as she glances down, pulls off her jacket and crumples it into a ball, presses it down on Fred's wound. "Can you hold this for me?" she asks and he does as he's told without question. "I need to check..."

Whatever it is, Joe won't get to find out because the paramedics arrive suddenly and he and the woman are pushed out of the way. He tells them what he knows, she tells them what she's done in words that are far longer than his and they both end up riding in the ambulance to the hospital. She joins the paramedics in working on Fred and Joe knows when he's surplus to requirements so he tries to stay out of the way (not easy in such a small space) and lets them get on with it. 

When they get to the hospital, the ER doctors take over and he finds himself standing outside a set of double doors, wondering what's going on inside, this mystery doctor beside him with an expression on her face that mirrors his feelings of concern and worry. 

"I owe you an apology," he hears himself saying and she looks up at him curiously. "For what I said when you came over."

She shakes her head and gives a tiny laugh. "You think you're the first person to ever react like that?" There's a small smile on her face and the thought comes to Joe that he'd like to see that expression more often. He's so surprised when that registers with him that he nearly misses her next words. "I graduated medical school when I was twenty," she tells him. "You get used to it."

He nods, hopes she ascribes the look of surprise on his face to her early qualification. "Wow," he says. Something else occurs to him then. "You know, I don't even know your name."

Another smile, and yes, he could definitely get used to that. "Caitlin. Caitlin Snow."

He holds out his hand. "Joe West."

Her grip is firm when she shakes his hand, that smile still on her face and he finds himself smiling back. He holds her hand a moment longer than is strictly proper but then again, he can't help but notice, she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to drop his either. "Do you work here?" he asks and she shakes her head. 

"By the time I finished my residency, I was already fed up of people thinking the same thing you did." She's smiling when she says it so he knows she's not upset. "So I went back and got a PhD in bio-engineering." That impresses him even more than graduating med school at twenty. "I started work at STAR Labs three weeks ago." 

"STAR Labs." The name stirs a memory of many a Sunday dinner, an animated Barry holding court on concepts Joe didn't even half understand. "That's Harrison Wells's lab, right?" 

Now it's Caitlin's turn to look impressed. "That's right." 

He hears her unspoken question. "My kid's a science nut," he tells her. "Wells is one of his heroes."

She tilts her head. "Most kids don't know his name," she points out and he has to give her that. 

"Barry's almost twenty-one," he explains and she gets an "ah" look on her face. "He's a double science major in college... I can understand about one word in ten of what he's doing, if I'm lucky."

"You must be proud." 

His reply is interrupted by the arrival of Captain Singh, all bluster and questions and a suspicious glance at Caitlin. Any suspicion evaporates when Joe says, "This is Doctor Snow... she was at the coffee shop, she worked on Fred til the bus got there."

If Singh was as surprised at her youth as Joe had been, he doesn't show it. "You have the thanks of the Central City Police Department," he says, shaking her hand and Caitlin blushes as she bites her lips, glances at the double doors. 

"Don't thank me yet." 

Pushing a wave of fear to the side, Joe motions to a chair and the three of them sit down to wait. 

*

It seems like a very long time before the doors open and someone appears to give them an update on Fred, though in reality Joe knows it's only a little over an hour. He tells Caitlin she doesn't have to hang around but she says she's like to know for herself how Fred is and he can't argue with that. He fills in the time spent waiting by studying Caitlin, trying to read her, figure her out. He learns pretty quickly that she's good at blending into the background; as other cops stop by to see if there's anything they can do, she lets Joe and Singh answer all the questions, only speaking when Joe looks directly at her and asks the same question. 

Her answer, "Give blood," has the cops moving in the right direction, has Singh smiling. 

Singh asks her questions occasionally, about the injury and the prognosis. She's cautious, careful not to commit one way or the other without any scans or x-rays but she answers succinctly, in words they can all understand and she's realistic without sugar coating things. Joe can appreciate that; so, he knows, does Singh. 

She's not a fan of the hospital coffee either, because when Singh sends a uniform to the cafeteria, she sips the cup that comes back to her and her nose wrinkles in distaste. She doesn't say anything about it though, just sips it quietly and if she knows that Joe noted her reaction, she doesn't say anything. 

And every once in a while, when he looks over at her, he finds her looking at him too. The first time it happens, she blushes, looks down quickly but he can see the hint of a smile on her face too. 

It has him hiding his own smile - after all, this is hardly the time or place. 

When the doors open and a man in green scrubs comes out, Joe and Singh jump to their feet, and Joe releases a breath he didn't know he was holding when the man smiles at them. "We managed to remove the bullet," he says without preamble. "And the blood loss wasn't too extensive... He's a lucky man." 

"Thank you, Doctor." Singh shakes his hand and smiles and hugs are exchanged among the cops gathered there. 

Once again, Caitlin stays in the background and Joe goes over to her, shakes her hand again. "Thank you," he says and the full smile he receives in response is nothing short of glorious. 

"I didn't actually do much," she says, "but I'm glad he's going to be ok." They share a moment where they're just standing there, smiling at one another, and Caitlin is the first to move. "I should get going..." She stops suddenly, as if something just occurred to her. "My purse is still at the coffee shop. Damn." 

Joe blinks. "It's a crime scene," he tells her. "I'm sure we'll be able to find it." He looks around. "My car is there too... I'll find a uniform to bring us back over." 

"Are you sure?" Caitlin bites her lip and Joe gives her a look. 

"Please." 

Turns out Singh is only too happy to give Caitlin the VIP treatment and the uniforms gathered around seem to think she's some sort of hero, which Joe can understand. After all, not only is she young and gorgeous but whatever she says, she played a part in saving a cop's life - it doesn't get much better than that. So getting the two of them back to the scene of the crime is easily done and it only takes a flash of his badge, the mention of his name and his partner's, to let him under the tape. He finds her purse easily, brings it back to her and her face lights up in relief.  

"Thank you," she says as she takes it from him, opens it up and scans inside. Finding everything in order she gives him another smile, tucks a lock of hair back behind her ear. 

He hears the words fall from his lips before he's even aware he's thinking them. "Would you like to go someplace for a cup of coffee?" He glances at his watch as something occurs to him. "Or, I don't know, dinner?" Because lunch was a long time ago and he hadn't exactly had much to eat before a coffee shop hold up had interrupted things. Besides, he just doesn't want to say goodbye to her just yet. 

Caitlin bites her lip, shifts on her feet, the tiniest frown appearing between her eyes. "Isn't someone waiting at home for you?" When he blinks in confusion, she stares pointedly at his left hand. "Your wife?"

Understanding dawns and Joe shakes his head. "Not any more." Caitlin tilts her head and he continues, "She's been gone for a long time now."

"I'm sorry." And she looks like she really is, eyes wide with sympathy. "I didn't mean to..."

"Honestly? I'd be more worried if you hadn't asked me." She doesn't strike him as the sort who'd step out with a married man; then again, as a cop, he's seen plenty of things he would never have expected. "It's just me and the kids." He takes out his wallet, flips it open and shows her the picture he keeps inside, one of the three of them last Christmas. "That's Iris... and I told you about Barry already." Her eyes go wide with surprise and she looks up at him quickly before looking down at the picture again. He smiles inwardly, recognising that look. "Barry's my foster son," he explains. "He and Iris were best friends... and when he was eleven..." He swallows, the passing of a decade not having made this any easier. "His dad killed his mom."

Caitlin's face blanches and she steps a little closer. "That's awful."

"I was one of the uniforms at the scene. They wanted to call social services; I said to hell with that. Took him home, put him in our spare room. He's been family ever since." 

The look Caitlin is giving him can only be described as admiring and Joe feels a shiver down his spine. It's a long time since any woman looked at him like that. "Not many men would have done that."

He shrugs. "Iris had already lost her mom," he said. "Seeing that look on Barry's face..." His stomach twists at the memory and only the touch of Caitlin's hand on his arm brings him back to the present. 

"You all look very happy." 

"That's take two," he tells her. "The first involved Santa hats and no-one will ever see those."

"Spoilsport." Her eyes twinkle. "And yes, by the way... I'd love to have dinner with you." 

*

They find a little Italian place not far away from the coffee shop, a place where the lights are soft, the background music is low and the food is second only to the company. At first, Joe's afraid that the candlelight might be overkill but after the first few minutes he doesn't even think about it. He's too busy looking at Caitlin, at the way she smiles, the way she laughs and he knows he sounds like some high school idiot but he doesn't care. 

They talk about nothing and everything, his job and her job, about Iris and Barry and the people she works with. He tells her a little about his wife, she mentions an engineer at STAR Labs who asked her out last week and he tries to ignore the stab of jealousy that flares. They talk about books and music and movies and it's only when the staff are starting to give them dirty looks that they realise they're the only two people left. Joe pays the bill over her strong protests and she's only slightly mollified when he lets her leave a more than generous tip. 

It's not a cold night by any means but the temperature outside has dropped while they've been eating and as they walk back to her car, Caitlin wraps her arms around herself and shivers. It's on the tip of Joe's tongue to ask her if she had a coat but then he remembers earlier in the coffee shop, her balling up her jacket, using it to stop Fred's bleeding. Once again acting without conscious thought, he stops, shrugs off his own jacket and places it around her shoulders. She looks up at him, small smile on her face,  pink tinge to her cheeks as his hands rub circles through the material. He looks into her eyes for a long moment before he leans in slowly and she leans in too, her hands on his chest, rising on her tiptoes to meet him halfway. 

It's a gentle kiss, slow and careful, because Joe's very aware of how they met, when they met, of the fact that he's almost old enough to be her father. So it's a bit of a surprise when Caitlin slides one hand up to cup the back of his head, opens her mouth under his and slides her tongue across his lips. He smiles into the kiss, responds in kind and when he pulls away, it's because he needs to catch his breath, not because he wants to break the kiss. 

"So..." Caitlin's fingers play with the buttons of his shirt as she looks up at him through her lashes. "I take it I'm not being forward if I ask about a second date?"

Joe laughs and slides his arms around her waist. "Not at all," he says as he pulls her close and kisses her again. 


End file.
